Story Premises that Just Don't Make Much Sense if You Think About it.

[Thaluikhain]

snip.

so essentially what your saying is they are sticking with the "straight white american male" thing when it actually may not represent popular demand or at least what could be sucessful

old white guys in suits mabye?

Yeah, looks like.

wait...they are doing that?

*facepalm*

poor Aquamans dead in the water....

Unless they cancelled it since they made the announcement, yeah.

 

[Arfonious]

Cthulhu; a being of unimaginable power and part of an incomprehensible cosmic plot, a being that could eradicate mankind without even realizing it. Unless you ram him with a boat, and he'll play nice and go back to bed. He's just a bone idle old sod who wants his sleepies at heart.

He/She/It was never rammed with a boat, where did you read that? The closest thing was the narrator running AWAY from Cthulhu in a boat.

In Call of Cthulhu, by a Norwegan sailor.

 

[Waffle_Man]

-snip-

Funny enough, the matrix was originally suppose to have the machines using humans for processing information, not body heat. It was changed because the executive producers of the movie thought that the audience would be too stupid to understand the concept. The entire movie would have also made more sense. Wetware computing would have real world advantages over logic gate based electronic circuitry. The matrix wouldn't have been "made," but would have instead been an unintended effect, much like the way subconscious "thought" is what makes people consciously experience dreams.

My biggest problem with almost any sci-fi setting in space is the question of how organisms that developed thousands of light-years apart are almost always essentially humanoid. Roughly 5-6 feet tall, bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical and capable of understanding and producing human speech. FEH!

Extra terrestrials would nearly definitely have a number of physical differences from humans, but the range of characteristics that lead to sentient and space faring organisms could very easily be constrained by a small number of characteristics required for space travel.

Barring some sort of hive mind, communication is necessary through rule based syntax. Math is also a requirement, as there are many engineering feats that would not be possible without precision. Baring some absurd biological conditions, math requires certain lingual concepts not far removed from our own. Tool use and technology also limits the number of possible characteristics by a great deal, as tool use must be supported by the biology of a given organism. Lastly, certain rules are required for a civilization to be able to flourish to the point of space travel. A society that demonizes expansion and exploration will not be one found in space.

The only exception to these rules is either a hypothetical organism that evolved in and freely moves through space, or our assumption of uniform laws of physics being errant, which are entirely different issues.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Also in on the Mass Effect bandwagon but for different reasons. The Thorian is an alien, who gives a shit what processes it uses to exist, that's completely irrelevant to anything about the universe or story. Anyways getting back to my actual point. The entire plot of the original Mass Effect makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

The whole point of Saren chasing down the conduit was because it was a backdoor into the citadel. But the only reason Saren needed a backdoor into the Citadel was because he tried to find the conduit(And ended up shooting a bunch of innocent people and getting himself kicked out of the Specters in the first place.) I have to think that they had a whole different idea for the game, and then changed what the conduit was forgetting that the games start made no sense if the conduit was a backdoor.

All he had to do was chill out in the Presidium. Have the Geth jump the citadel(Which would have far smaller fleets than in the attack in Mass Effect 1, as Shepard had warned them and they were on military alert with fleets standing by.) Wait till the council freaks out and tries to run, then go up to the council chamber and order all of C-SEC to go keep order in the residential districts(which he can do because hes a specter and because its a logical order) Then shoot anyone who might have happened to have stayed back, which he could easily have done as it would be unexpected. Then open up the wings and let the reapers come, while Shepard goes on more missions in backwater areas with Nihilus completely oblivious to the doom that has just been unleashed.

Even if you want to argue that he somehow needed to sneak a bunch of Geth onto the Citadel. Just load them into transport crates and walk them through security. He can wave his badge and get them expedited and they already beat Noveria's anal retentive security system so there's no reason they couldn't beat the Citadels. And even if for some magic reason they can't, who even cares? They don't check ships until they are docked anyways. Land a dozen freighters, fill them to the gills with Geth and then just bullrush C-SEC.

Basically the only reason the reapers lost their war was because Saren completely incompetent at his job.

 

[RandV80]

So in Star Wars why are humans the only apparent dominant species? Considering that the galaxy is old, and basic space faring technology is basically at a point similar to what gunpowder is today, how could a single race possibly gain the manpower to dominate the entire galaxy like the Empire does?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

but they've decided that getting the people who made the Green Lantern movie, which everyone hated, to make a movie about Aquaman (who everyone hates) is a good idea.

I don't so much hate him as pity him

I looked at the Batgirl annual and comic to add to my subscriptions for 'a death in the family' event but the cover completely put me off. There was so much shiny black leather, boobs and strange anatomy I didn't know where to look...

Spoiler: That's erm...an interesting pose ya got there Batgirl :/

Yeah I think I'll stick with reading Wonder Woman and Supergirl...

 

[mysecondlife]

Bleach confuses the hell out of me.

Reapers exist to send stranded souls to some sort of heaven? OK, I'm fine with that.

But then what are those other species that shoots arrows? Are they supposed to be other kind of reapers?

Why do main character's friends have unexplained powers?

What happens when the reapers 'die'? Didn't they die already long time ago?

Why are reapers divided into 13 or so different groups? Some of the groups' specialties are defined but I still don't see its purpose.

What happens if the bad guys win? If bad guys' victory means annihilation of all reapers, why should that matter to the real world where people don't even know reapers, ghosts, etc. don't even exist?


As far as I know, the writer's explanation to everything seems to be "It just is".

 

[Redingold]

Cthulhu; a being of unimaginable power and part of an incomprehensible cosmic plot, a being that could eradicate mankind without even realizing it. Unless you ram him with a boat, and he'll play nice and go back to bed. He's just a bone idle old sod who wants his sleepies at heart.

He/She/It was never rammed with a boat, where did you read that? The closest thing was the narrator running AWAY from Cthulhu in a boat.

As for me... The Mass Effect universe. The guns are stated to fire little slivers of matter at relativistic speeds, yet you can clearly see the shots travelling from the muzzle to your target, like some sort of very slow ass tracer fire. That, and you'd think that something with the energy of a grain of sand travelling at light speed would be able to destroy all those chest high walls easily.

No, the guns don't fire at anywhere close to relativistic speeds. Supersonic, maybe, but not even dreadnoughts fire at relativistic velocities. Relativity only really needs to be taken into account above 0.1c, and dreadnought shells and launched at 0.013c (and even at 0.1c, the effect of relativity is extremely small, a clock moving at 0.1c will run 0.5% slower than an identical clock at rest).

As for destroying chest high walls, it turns out that no matter the speed it travels at, a projectile can only penetrate a certain distance into any obstacle it encounters. See Newton's approximation for impact depth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_depth

As for seeing the rounds fired, I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen in the first Mass Effect, you only see the path of the bullet through the air, and only occasionally. It's in ME2 and 3 that you can see the bullets, and there are far bigger lore violations to complain about in those games (remember when, in accordance with the laws of physics, your guns cooled down of their own accord?).

 

[Olas]

If you'd rather watch your version of the movie than go for it.
Spoilers: It's a blank black screen and it needs a new title.

I assumed it was about domination. They contain our entire intelligence, our entire world, and they use it to keep their own nation free of conflict.
I'm pretty sure the other issue is you're designing the wrong direction. I don't imagine they sat down to write the Matrix and started with
"What if we had a machine emperor that wanted to rule a peaceful nation?"
I'm sure it was closer to
"What if our world wasn't real?"

Thus the premise is dependent on that core idea, if you wanna fix it, fix it in that direction. That means we need to be gathered, tricked, keep our mental capacity, etc.

I didn't propose an alternative version of the story, but if I were to I'd probably still include all the cool Matrixy stuff, I'd just find a better explanation for it. Believe it or not good story telling and logical coherence aren't mutually exclusive, and sometimes go hand in hand.

For example, several people have mentioned that in earlier drafts the machines were supposed to use us for our brains' processing power, not just energy. That would resolve pretty much all my issues beautifully and wouldn't in any way detract from the rest of the movie.

As to your second point, while you're right that movies start with a central idea in mind and build around it, a movie that takes itself as seriously as The Matrix really should try to stay coherent from all points of view. Saying that a certain aspect of the story isn't as significant so we can just BS it shows a lack of dedication and downright laziness on the writers part.

 

[Warachia]

1. I was consistently moving in a small area but it was. Also a Venus fly trap doesn't move with muscle witch is how the Thorian would have to. A Venus fly trap moves in the same way a bear trap dose. Look up Cell Wall.

2. They clam it's senescent that would imply intelligence, witch would imply a brain. A brain is made out of neurons. They never explain how it can think if it doesn't have those. It would be more confusing if it didn't have neurons. And if it doesn't have neurons how dose it think?

3. The parts that you shoot are green. Plus there is a slight green tint on most of it. I also know the answer to that one. It's so people will associate it with a plaint. It doesn't mean if you think about it, it doesn't make sense.

Your explanation for 1 and 2 would add more questions then they would answer. That is what I would consider a bad answer. For 3 fine we are not looking at the same parts, I am just going to drop it.

1. Plants can move, I don't know why you think they can't, and it moved about 0.01% of its body in a confined space when you met it, that's more than acceptable for an alien technically classified as a plant, as even some carnivorous plants move consistently.

2. It's intelligent, but doesn't have a brain like we do. That aside, even if it did, how is this a problem? And how does this interfere with it being a plant?

3. So apparently some parts are green (not that I ever saw, I remember them being flesh or purple), this could be one of several things, why do you assume it's because of photosynthesis? It could be because of cell structure for all we know, look at young trees, cut away a little of the bark and the part underneath is GREEN! This has nothing to do with collecting sunlight.

Bleach confuses the hell out of me.

Reapers exist to send stranded souls to some sort of heaven? OK, I'm fine with that.

But then what are those other species that shoots arrows? Are they supposed to be other kind of reapers?

Why do main character's friends have unexplained powers?

What happens when the reapers 'die'? Didn't they die already long time ago?

Why are reapers divided into 13 or so different groups? Some of the groups' specialties are defined but I still don't see its purpose.

What happens if the bad guys win? If bad guys' victory means annihilation of all reapers, why should that matter to the real world where people don't even know reapers, ghosts, etc. don't even exist?


As far as I know, the writer's explanation to everything seems to be "It just is".

Here's the answers:

No, they are humans with special abilities.

Because they were strong enough spiritually that it manifested when faced with a dangerous scenario (there's also a really shitty retcon later on but ignore that).

Soul society is another existence, anybody who dies here, goes there, and you don't need to eat, drink, or sleep, if you ever do, you can potentially become a soul reaper as you are now "alive" there, if you die there, you join the spirit king (from what I understand).

Each group has a different speciality and philosophy.

If the villains win, plenty of people won't be able to enter soul society, and will be food for hollows (corrupted souls), after a hollow feeds off of a soul that soul will either join the hollow (eventually creating a horrific hive mind before possibly going braindead), or become a new hollow, and hollows attack regular people, and aside from soul reapers, quincy's (the archers, with a population of 2 people), and really shitty filler arc characters, there isn't any way to hurt a hollow, leave hollows alone long enough they'll consume everything.

These aren't that hard to figure out, most of these they flat out tell you.

 

[Jfswift]

I remember Blade Runner making no sense on account of the non-viable nature of the androids. Just make non-sentient machines instead, they don't wanna flee, they're cheaper too >_>

But they can't think, troubleshoot, or solve problems on their own. A lack of people in manufacturing HAS lead to people trying to create human-like androids capable of doing human labor. Of course, if I were making Human-like androids, I'd go for a humanoid figure that isn't actually human. Probably model it off an animal instead.

Oh great, as cool as I think that'd be, I'd have to say that's a really bad idea. Now you have pissed off anthro androids that are basically super strong like before but are more dextrous, armed with claws and teeth. Unless you used penquins.. hmmm

 

[blackrave]

Most stories that involve Time Travel, esp. if the rules of how the time travel works aren't clearly defined.

That is because we have no actual idea how time travel works (if it is even possible at all)
I personally believe that most logical rules are
1.You can go only into past (so it is one way ticket)
2.Time traveler is a product of false time loop (so he can do anything without fear of disappearing)
3.Time travel consumes insane amount of energy (you're basically creating matter from nothing in the past)
4.Each false time loop can send only one time traveler (because even minor past alteration deletes that time loop and creates new one)
That said "real" time traveling rules might be hugely different

 

[DoPo]

Skyrim, I love the game, but once you are out of the starting cave, why should my character feel the need to do anything? He was almost killed by a dragon and he is persuaded to fight one early in the story, I think your character would be all too happy to gtfo if he got news that a dragon was nearby.

this is my problem with the elderscroll games in general

oh sure its a big nice world but realLY I've got no personal motivation to do anything

That's the reason you don't have to do anything. Sure, some dude tells you to fetch him something - you can just ignore that and go robbing people in the streets or whatever. If you do go doing what you were asked to do, then you did it yourself, if you decided to say "Fuck that" and just run off somewhere else, then you did it yourself, too - no one is forcing the story on you.

 

[Eddie the head]

1. Plants can move, I don't know why you think they can't, and it moved about 0.01% of its body in a confined space when you met it, that's more than acceptable for an alien technically classified as a plant, as even some carnivorous plants move consistently.

2. It's intelligent, but doesn't have a brain like we do. That aside, even if it did, how is this a problem? And how does this interfere with it being a plant?

3. So apparently some parts are green (not that I ever saw, I remember them being flesh or purple), this could be one of several things, why do you assume it's because of photosynthesis? It could be because of cell structure for all we know, look at young trees, cut away a little of the bark and the part underneath is GREEN! This has nothing to do with collecting sunlight.

The way in witch it was moving would require a muscle, plants can't have muscle due to a cell wall. What was being done was many moment's in precise manner. Not something that could be accomplished without the use of a muscle. It can't have muscle but it's moving in a way that would require it? You don't understand how that can be confusing when there is no other given explanation?

Ok for two. If it had a brain like ours it would be a plant. Neuron don't have cell walls, to be a plant cell it would have to have cell walls. So it goes back to it would require it but can't have it. If it was a special type of Neuron that has Cell walls would be fine if they explained it. Or stated it or anything.

And if we say it's not like ours. Then how dose it work? There is no answer to that question. Making it just as nutritively confusing.

For three, no I am assuming the green was there so people would recognize it as a plant. Also it's not that important in the long run.

Lastly I want to make clear that I wish no offence by anything I say here. But your arguments as a whole, has shown a lack of basic understanding of Cell Biology. That's fine. Ignorance is bliss. But if you barely know what Organelle, Cytoplasm, Cell wall, and Lysosome means then will you stop? I wish no offense, but I don't think you do. I mean that in the most sincere way possible. Please don't take offence to this. I'm not trying to insult you, but you haven't shown any understanding on the difference between a plant cell and an animal cell. Witch is the argument.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Most stories that involve Time Travel, esp. if the rules of how the time travel works aren't clearly defined.

That is because we have no actual idea how time travel works (if it is even possible at all)
I personally believe that most logical rules are
1.You can go only into past (so it is one way ticket)
2.Time traveler is a product of false time loop (so he can do anything without fear of disappearing)
3.Time travel consumes insane amount of energy (you're basically creating matter from nothing in the past)
4.Each false time loop can send only one time traveler (because even minor past alteration deletes that time loop and creates new one)
That said "real" time traveling rules might be hugely different

Yes, but most stories that use time travel as a plot device don't follow your rules and usually leave plot holes the large enough to drive a truck through.
I recall one episode of Star Trek: TNG where these time travelers from the future traveled back in time to the show's present chasing after some macguffin so Picard and some lady by the name of Vash have to find it first. In the end

Spoiler

Picard destroys the mcguffin

and the time travelers are just like "oh well, history says that happens anyway." As the nitpickers guide once pointed out, couldn't they just have traveled back to a few minutes ago and stopped Picard from doing that?
Don't get me wrong, I loved ST:TNG, but you have to admit that was a bit of a plot hole.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The recent finished anime "Eureka 7 AO" is still confusing despite their best to wrap things up-

Spoiler: Episode 23 & 24 spoilers

How or why the hell that by erasing Truth existence with the Quatz gun did Ao end up getting a new/ different IFOs the "Nirvash Neo"? Did Truth involvement somehow alter the future construction of the Nirvash seen in AO?

I think the bigger qurstion is if the Scrub Coral keep invading places in their histories than why didn't any Secrets appear during the first show? Well ok they probably didn't plan that far ahead during Euraka 7 but I find it odd that the Secret didn't appear during that timeline.

Lastly why didn't Renton or Eureka ever tried to communicate with the coral to asked them simply find another world to try to lived in if their presences only end up destorying the human race. The whole destorying any corals or secret that appear seen to be a never ending cycle.

 

[redisforever]

In the book (no, really! I own it!), it was explained it something like this. Scientists opened a reason to some planet, and the "demons" were actually aliens, and using a brain control thing that would make us think they were demons, people got more scared. The aliens figured that humanity would be more scared of Hell. Suddenly, Hell has broken loose. At least, that's what it looks like to us. I may be wrong in some of the details, as I last read the book about 4 years ago.

Well, this makes more sense, especially in a book that had so little of original setting to work with
But-but-but... isn't it Half-Life thing, then? Aside of cosplaying demons?

More or less, yeah. Then again, Half-Life is basically Doom with a well thought out story. Doom had a story at one point, and a really long, complex one, with multiple characters, and then John Carmack (oddly enough, I'd have expected Romero to say this) said to the Tom Hall, the writer, "Story in a video game is like story in a porn movie. You expect it to be there, but it's not what you're there for."